Water in the City

Few individuals have risen to the scientific heights of environmental chemistry as well as the physical heights of some of the world’s most challenging mountains.  But these two themes, and other personal traits in a unique career, were celebrated in a two-day Special Symposium at the American Chemical Society’s Annual Meeting in San Diego in recognition of Martin Reinhard’s contributions to aquatic environmental chemistry. 

There’s an old joke about how you can tell if you’re talking to an introverted engineer or an extroverted engineer - the first looks at his own shoes, the other looks at yours. And as with many jokes, there’s an element of truth behind the humor.

When most people think of wastewater treatment, they probably don’t think of rocket science. Well, here at Stanford we are bringing rocket technology to wastewater treatment. Sounds crazy, right?

It rained last week.  In most places this wouldn’t be a remarkable event, but it hasn’t rained in Berkeley for over half a year.  When I heard the sound of rain running across the roof, I knew that summer was really over and that we are moving from brown hillsides to fragrant mud on our way to the oddly premature spring that starts in February.  As required by the local building code, the rain that runs across my roof passes through a PVC pipe and into the street.  The runoff from my roof, along with that of the roofs of my neighbors and all of the water from the roads, driveways, and parking lots all flow through the streets on their way to the storm sewers that drain the city into San Francisco Bay.

If you sit on the deck of Carmel’s Mission Ranch, Clint Eastwood’s restored hotel and restaurant on California’s Central Coast, you can see the Carmel River and the upper edge of the lagoon that attaches it to Monterey Bay. During much of the year, the Carmel River runs at a trickle because a dam and a series of upstream water users divert the water. Due to the low flow in the river, the Steelhead salmon waiting for the winter rains to connect the river to the ocean struggle to survive in the warm water. Perhaps Mr. Eastwood and the concerned residents of Carmel ponder the fate of the salmon as they discuss the water war and its legal twists and turns while enjoying the bucolic view from the deck. It’s too bad that they can’t see that help for the salmon is sitting just over the horizon.

We’re all familiar with the proverb, “Necessity is the mother of invention.”  And whether you’re the type of person who believes inherently in the ability of technology to solve all the world’s problems, the type who believes technology causes all the world’s problems, or somewhere in between, you’ll likely agree that finding yourself with a scarcity of something that’s important to you will really get you thinking.  Especially when that something is as important as water.  Just ask a Texan.

While much of the U.S. east coast braces for too much water in the form of Hurricane Irene this weekend, constituents here in California are fighting over the typically low summer water flows in Sonoma County’s rivers and streams. This time, it’s wine versus salmon.

My infant son is only six months old, but my wife and I already have a very large collection of books for him to (eventually) read.  One that I picked up the other day is Richard Scarry’s What Do People Do All Day?, which I am told by some labor economists is a surprisingly good representation of our workforce . . .

The recent action/thriller movie, Battle: Los Angeles, is about aliens who descend off the coast of California and begin an attack on the city of Santa Monica. In truth, this movie is only for the most ardent action junkies and the reviews aren’t very good. Without spoiling the plot, the Marines take a stand on Lincoln Boulevard and save the day. The movie is murky — both in story and filming. One brief scene explains amid a bunch of distracting special effects why the aliens came to Earth and what they want. Apparently they’re after our water! Yes, amid all the other water wars occurring in the west, now we have to deal with aliens as well.

It‘s finally official. NSF sent us notification that our Engineering Research Center will be funded starting on August 1. After an 18-month period consisting of a pre-proposal, proposal, site visit, reverse site visit, three research planning meetings and a seemingly unending progression of conference calls we are ready to start a journey into uncharted territory.

The gathering at the University of South Florida in Tampa, FL, is the largest-attended biannual conference of the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors [AEESP]. We are here along with John McCray and Kara Nelson, representing ERC faculty at the meeting. Described by some attendees as the “sweatiest AEESP conference ever,” the discussions over the past two days resonate well with the themes of the ERC, with conference sessions on urban water infrastructure systems and alternative water strategies.